How to Jump the Sales Achievement Gap: Onboarding and Ongoing Training

Your sales team may not be in the office. And every management team is different. To set your team up for success, clue them in and make sure they understand what is important to management and what is not. Aligning clear goals will go a long way in helping your new hire to feel comfortable, effective and willing to be vulnerable enough to take constructive criticism.

According to the Association for Talent Development, sales reps receive an average of 31.5 hours of training a year or 2.6 hours per month. The best sales teams have continuous training of nearly 8 hours per month. At 8 hours the investment in training has the highest return because that amount of focus and time is needed for people to actually change and improve their behavior.

Planning for Year One, Not Just Month One
The average time to productivity is 381 days for a sales rep, but a well-structured onboarding process improves a sales rep’s speed to productivity. A sales rep who participates in a well-structured onboarding and training process can be effective by 6 months – a reduction of ineffective sales rep time by 40%. Making sales revenue focused 4 month sooner.

Taking this into account, it’s appropriate that sales training should be a holistic and ongoing process. The most effective sales training programs take into account each rep’s current knowledge, skills, and areas to improve upon over a period of time. Tools should be designed to meet and build upon each rep’s individual needs. The best programs will adapt to a sales rep’s learning style: visual, auditory, verbal, physical, logical, or social.

A holistic training program that starts with onboarding and continues with ongoing training to hone important skills including pitch review and dealing with objections will help sales reps become effective, faster.

Set Up for Success: Key Goals for Sales Onboarding From Startup to EnterpriseNo matter the growth stage or size of your organization, to set your sales team up for success you need to clue them in and make sure they understand what is important to management and what is not.